The effects of teamwork on staff perception of empowerment and job satisfaction

Rosabeth Moss Kanter's model of organizational empowerment was used to examine the effects of a multidisciplinary teamwork project initiated in preparation for a 1995 Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation survey. Kanter maintains that work structures such as teams foster opportunities to learn and grow, provide access to information, support and resources, empower employees, and result in increased work satisfaction and effectiveness. Staff who participated on multidisciplinary teams to prepare for the accreditation survey (n = 210) and a random sample of staff who did not participate on the teams (n = 348) were surveyed to ascertain their perceptions of work-related empowerment and job satisfaction. Consistent with Kanter's propositions, members participating on teams had higher empowerment scores and perceived access to empowerment structures to be more important than members not participating on these teams. Overall, perceived access to empowerment structures was found to be significantly lower than perceived importance of access to the empowerment structures. The results of this study support the use of multidisciplinary teams as one work redesign strategy for enhancing work effectiveness in the health care environment.